How Not to Be a Professional Footballer
An anecdote-driven narrative of the classic footballer's ‘DOs and DO NOTs’ from the ever-popular Arsenal legend and football pundit Paul Merson, aka ‘The Merse’.
When it comes to advice on the pitfalls of life as a professional footballer, Paul Merson can pretty much write the manual. In fact, that's exactly what he's done in this hilarious new book which manages to be simultaneously poignant and gloriously funny.
Merson was a prodigiously talented footballer in the 80s and 90s, gracing the upper echelons of the game - and the tabloid front pages - with his breathtakingly skills and larger-than-life off-field persona.
His much-publicised battles with gambling, drug and alcohol addiction are behind him now, and football fans continue to be drawn to his sharp footballing brain and playful antics on SkySports cult results show Soccer Saturday.
The book delights and entertains with a treasure chest of terrific anecdotes from a man who has never lost his love of football and his inimitable joie de vivre through a 25-year association with the Beautiful Game.
The DO NOTs include:
DO NOT adopt 'Champagne' Charlie Nicholas as your mentor
DO NOT share a house with Gazza
DO NOT regularly place £30,000 bets at the bookie's
DO NOT get so drunk that you can't remember the 90 minutes of football you just played in
DO NOT manage Walsall (at any cost)
How Not to be a Professional Footballer is a hugely entertaining, moving and laugh-out-loud funny story.
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HOW NOT TO BE A
PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLER
PAUL MERSON
with Matt Allen
Contents
A Note from the Author
Introduction - Last Knockings
Lesson 1 - Do Not Go to Stringfellows with Charlie Nicholas
Lesson 2 - Do Not Drink 15 - Pints and Crash Your Car into a Lamppost
Lesson 3 - Do Not Cross Gorgeous George
Lesson 4 - Do Not Shit on David Seaman’s Balcony
Lesson 5 - Do Not Bet on Scotland on Your Wedding Day
Lesson 6 - Do Not Wax the Dolphin before an England Game
Lesson 7 - Do Not Go to a Detroit Gay Bar with Paul Ince and John Barnes
Lesson 8 - Do Not Wander Round Nightclubs Trying to Score Coke
Lesson 9 - Do Not Get So Paranoid That You Can’t Leave the House
Lesson 10 - Do Not Ask for a Potato Peeler in Rehab
Lesson 11 - Do Not Miss a Penalty in the UEFA Cup
Lesson 12 - Do Not Leave Arsenal with Your William Hill Head On
Lesson 13 - Do Not Let Gazza Move into Your House
Lesson 14 - Do Not Ask Eileen Drewery for a Short Back and Sides
Lesson 15 - Do Not Give Gazza the Keys to the Team Bus
Lesson 16 - Do Not Tell Harry Redknapp You’re Going into Rehab only to Bunk off to Barbados for a Jolly
Lesson 17 - Do Not Smile at a Sex Addict Called Candy
Lesson 18 - Do Not Try to Outwit Jeff Stelling
Lesson 19 - Do Not Admit Defeat (the Day-to-Day Battle)
Appendix
Copyright
A Note from the Author
One thing before we crack on: an apology. You’ll only hear it from me on this one page because I’ve read too many life stories and books where people are constantly tripping over themselves to make up for all the bad things they’ve done. Page after page after page of it, and after a while it just doesn’t ring true.
The thing is, you’re going to read a lot of bad things over the following pages, and some of it is pretty shocking. The last thing you need to get through is a million and one apologies as well, so you’re only reading the one, but it’s sincere. For the terrible things I’ve done and to some of the people I’ve hurt and let down: I’m sorry.
Introduction
Last Knockings
I’ll tell you how bad it got for me. At my lowest point as a gambler, the night before an away game for Aston Villa, I sat on the edge of my bed in a Bolton hotel room and thought about breaking my own fingers. I was that desperate not to pick up the phone and dial in another bet. At that time in my life I’d blown around seven million quid with the bookies and I wanted so badly to stop, but I just couldn’t – the next punt was always too tempting. Slamming my own fingers in a door or breaking them one by one with a hammer was the only way I knew of ending the cycle. It was insanity really. The walls had started closing in on me.
When I was bang on the cocaine, I sold my Arsenal blazer to a dealer because I’d run out of money in the pub and I was desperate to get high. All the lads at Highbury had an official club jacket, tailored, with the team crest emblazoned on the front. It was a badge of honour really, something the directors, coaching staff and players wore with pride. It said to everyone else: ‘Being an Arsenal player is something special.’ It meant nothing to me, though, not at my most desperate. I was out of pocket and there wasn’t a cashpoint around, so I swapped it for one pathetic gram, worth just £50. The next day I told Arsenal’s gaffer, George Graham, that the blazer had been nicked out of the back of my car. Well, at that stage in my life a made-up story like that seemed more realistic than the truth.
At the peak of my game, I was drinking more lager tops than the fans. I would go out three, four, five nights a week and drink pints and pints and pints, usually until I couldn’t drink any more. Some nights I wouldn’t go home. I’d leave training, go on the lash, fall asleep in the bar or finish my last beer at silly o’clock. Before I knew it, I was in a taxi on my way to training, then I’d go through the whole cycle all over again. Unless I’d been nicked, that is.
That happened once or twice. One night, I remember going into the boozer for a few beers and a game of pool with a mate. We got plastered. While we were playing, some lads kept having a go at us, shouting across the bar and making wisecracks, probably because they recognised me. This mate of mine was a bit of a wild card, I never knew how he was going to react when he was pissed. This time he blew up with a pool cue. A chair was thrown through the window; he smashed up the optics. It all kicked off and there was blood everywhere. The bar looked like a scene from a Chuck Norris film.
We ran home. I was covered in claret, so I chucked my shirt in the washing machine, turned it on and went to bed. That was my drunk logic at work: I thought the problem would magically disappear if I stuck my head under the covers. I even ignored my now ex-wife, Lorraine, who was standing there, staring at me, wondering what the hell was going on as I pretended to be asleep. It wasn’t long before the police started banging on the front door. Lorraine let them in, and when they steamed into the bedroom, I made out they’d woken me up.
